COMING OF AGE IN A FAMILY BUFFETED BY CHANGE, TENSION

DEBORAH HORNBLOW; Courant Staff WriterTHE HARTFORD COURANT

Christine Jeffs' exquisite first feature, "Rain," establishes her in the league occupied by Lynne Ramsay ("Ratcatcher") and Lucrecia Martel ("La Cienaga"): emerging directors whose lyrical storytelling techniques and powerful evocations of childhood are as distinct as they are original.

Jeffs filmed "Rain" on locations around the Mahurangi Peninsula, a pristine stretch of sand and gentle sea on the eastern coast of New Zealand. Working with cinematographer John Toon, Jeffs has captured the glistening expanse of the ocean, forested glens and a languid atmosphere of perpetual summer.

It is on the peninsula in an isolated cottage beside the sea that a family has come for an extended holiday. But if the setting is idyllic, it serves finally as a bittersweet counterpoint to the human lives played out there.

"Rain," based on the novel by Kirsty Gunn, is the story of a family verging on transition. It is narrated by Janey (Alicia Fulford-Wierzbicki), the family's precocious, independent 13-year-old, a girl who cadges cigarettes, sips martinis and sees everything going on with absolute clarity. Janey's mother, Kate (Sarah Peirse) is a detached alcoholic, a woman clinging to the last vestiges of a sexual allure compromised by the self-abuse of cigarettes and booze. Janey's father, Ed (Alistair Browning), is a loving but helpless man who vascillates between lightly scolding his wife and enabling her addictions. Janey's brother, Jim (the irresistible, freckled sprite Aaron Murphy), is too young to see the problems, and his happy innocence injects the family life (and the film) with moments of cherished sweetness.

Life on holiday revolves around Janey's parents' drinking. They imbibe at all hours, throw noisy parties and, in the morning, Mom is typically in bed with "a migraine."

Janey, who hates her mother's drinking, has necessarily become the day-care provider for Jim, and the two are largely left to their own devices. They swim, build sand castles, sit around the back porch and spy on the grownups.

Soon the underlying strains in the family life, and on the relationship between Janey and her mother, are exacerbated by the appearance of a photographer called Cady (Marton Csokas). Kate begins an affair with him, a circumstance that is apprehended by Janey in a few short, perfectly wordless scenes. And whether Janey is rivaling her mother or, in a perverse way, protecting her family, she does what she can to draw Cady's attention in her direction.

Like changes that affect real families off the big screen, those buffeting Janey's clan occur gradually and there is a constant tension between what is "normal family life" and the elements under the surface that threaten to pull it apart. Jeffs carefully tends this tension, alternating happy times with the sights and sounds of problems. It is a pendulum swing beautifully underscored by the music of Neil Finn and Edmund McWilliams, who shift from carefree pop to moodier passages.

The acting is first-rate if here and there heavy New Zealand accents occasionally make the speech difficult to comprehend. Young Fulford-Wierzbicki gives an especially powerful performance as the smart, tough Janey, a girl who is at the age when children try to accelerate the process of growing up by copping the experiences that signify adulthood: cigarettes, cocktails, a kiss.

Throughout the film, the shots created by Jeffs and Toon have the effect of heightening the experience of everyday life and ordinary events without ever robbing them of their reality. Janey's summer unfolds in the way that memories do, as fragments that add up to a complete picture. Sometimes Jeffs inserts a shot that shifts into slow motion. Avoiding the cliched use of the technique (which is typically used to capture a tragedy as it happens), Jeffs deploys the device as a cue to a certain psychological state. It's as if a particular moment was being turned over like a lost treasure, something held in the mind's eye and then reluctantly released as life moves on.

Jeffs exploits the beauty of her location for naturally lovely shots and finds others in the mundane details of domestic life. She opens "Rain" with a glorious overhead of Janey floating on her back in a shimmering sea. Later, Kate's manicured hands wash lemons in the kitchen sink. Glasses are filled with ice and bourbon. The ash on Kate's cigarette lengthens like a signal of neglect. Jimmy plays in the surreal light that gives the beach a halo.

Jeffs has filmed a number of award-winning commercials for advertising agencies, but "Rain" marks her arrival as a serious, intelligent and gifted visual storyteller. "Rain" is a remarkable film, an exquisite exploration of family dynamics and the manner in which the behavior of one inexorably alters the behaviors and fates of the others.

RAIN is directed by Christine Jeffs. Written by Jeffs from the novel by Kirsty Gunn. . Opens today at Real Art Ways, Hartford. Running time: 92 minutes. Not rated, with scenes of alcohol abuse and sexually suggestive moments.